Tag Archives: #joy

Mental Health

5 Essentials for Building Inner Happiness

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I act often with fear and bravery chasing each other in my eyes… – Olya Aman

Introduction

L. is a good nurse, and that alone tells a lot about her. She was born in Rwanda, adopted and raised in Europe. L. moved back to Rwanda when she learned her way and made sure that helping her patients was her aim in life. After the genocide her native country needed support, her least lucky people needed her knowledge.  

You must not grudge me a little pomp and ceremony about this story. L. is a fine creature, her big almost black identical in size and shape eyes cause people to confide in her. She learned early on to listen, and this skill proved to be invaluable in her profession. 

“Every day is like putting Humpty Dumpty back together again,” she says. “I begin my harum-scarum day and see the transformation, one person at a time.”

People often live with the brow of an optimist above and the jaw of a pessimist below. To make one dominate another is to create real value in life. A positive approach to everything one does helps to build a skill set that makes a smile last a lifetime. Whereas, one sardonic smile can bring gloom that blankets everything around.

1) Negative Thoughts Are as Bad as a Dangerous Plague, and Infinitely as Harmful to Your Health

“I was 12 when my new parents took me to Europe. I have my first memories linked with horror and fear, loss and grief. Those memories shaped my personality and in some way, I am grateful for the background I have. Although, gratitude was not speedy enough to visit me.”

“My good, generous and loving parents had to put up with a lot. I was not an obedient child, rebelling at anything and everything. I was in constant emotional pain at least first five-six years or so. The lesson of the genocide period in Rwanda left my whole being in ruins. Nearly one million people were killed. I lost my family, my friends, everything I ever loved.”

When we feel negative emotions, they surround our brain by a mysterious halo, which shuts off the outside world, limiting our ability to see the way out. Our brain finds it easy to see the raw afternoon and the dense fog, the muddy streets, and the bleak houses. 

You need to make an effort to not letting bad things alone take their own bad way. The world takes gloomy and bright passages, and if you take it off-handedly, it will never go right for you. That is why in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog you need to force yourself to see the light, to shake the negativity off. 

Procrastination, spoliation, evasion, botheration blind your brain, depriving you of the ability to see the options and choices that surround you.

2) How Positive Thoughts Color Our Life in Healthy Beautiful Shades

“Love and patience helped me to gradually come back to believing again. Jane and Matt – my stepparents – are my rocks in life. I owe them my new self, or, rather, the return of my old happy before-the-horror-self. I remember and I mourn, I often cry, but now mostly because of happy memories. I have more of those, you know, and the rest is still here in my heart, but not pressing and as vivid anymore.”

“This transformation came with the knowledge that I wanted to make a change. I was sick for a while at some point. A woman that nursed me in the hospital imprinted the longing for the same profession in me. By that time I knew that Rwanda was in the reconstruction period and the system of health needed human resources. I was going to come back home.” 

The impact of positive emotions on the brain and overall health is hard to underestimate. Joy, contentment, and love open endless possibilities in life, they broaden your mind, make it more prone to new innovative solutions. 

When you seem to be a mass of dull, complaining feelings everything you do may seem distasteful. Gift yourself with optimistic thinking by identifying areas of your life that usually upset you. Each time your thoughts distress you, drive them out or find a way to put a positive spin on them. 

A smile during difficult times lightens the burden of troubles. When you humor everyday misfortunes, you feel less stressed. A good laugh is a luxury, the radiating waves of it break the toughest walls of desperation. 

Our social barometers always should stand at ‘sunny’. Negative people continually war with your happiness. Surround yourself with positive, supportive people who can give help with advice and action. 

3) Motivation is Another Definition of Positive Thinking

“The desire not only to see my country again, but to be able to bring good – my skillset and knowledge – was driving me in my studies. I followed the efforts of Dr. Binagwaho, who spent years helping to rebuild the country’s health care system. She is my hero.”

“The most precious resource of the post-genocide Rwanda was its people. Thousands of community health workers traveled from home to home providing the necessary care. I willingly joined the rural health tribe.”

Life has many costumes and only by looking at it with optimism one can truly value it. Positive emotions prompt useful and valuable everyday activity. Encouraging thinking is a sophisticated weapon in a battle with monotony. 

Building anything requires patience and motivation, both are synonymous with optimism. Only in a state of appreciation you can spark massive changes that can lead to new developments in life.

The ability to stay enthusiastic and hopeful is always located within. Whatever happens outside should not determine your state of mind, for that power rests with you only. So, does not allow an external event to be a disturbance.

4) How to Allow Positivity Reign Amid Chaos

“The health workers were selected by the villages they served. The people of my native village decided that I would care for them. It was the happiest day of my life.”

“The country’s health system has managed to achieve so much progress on a very limited budget. Other poor countries often call this achievement miraculous, I call it challenging. Our dedication to delivering effective health care improves the lives of the poor and that is the best reward we need.”

Do not blame yourself for the lack of calmness, doing so will never bring you to the state of inner joy. Practice awareness of what makes you feel good. Immerse yourself in this activity. Meditate if that makes you display more positive emotions, increased mindfulness, and decreased illness symptoms. 

Explain your inner state of mind in writing. If you note your positive experiences, you will have a better mood level and fewer health problems. 

We are all rooted to our social environment, meeting people we like and … not so much. Schedule fun time with optimistic people. Positivity attracts more of its own self, just being optimistic will make lovely, cheerful people your reality.

 5) Happiness and Success Come Together

“At the end of every day, I am tired and full of joy and sorrow. Both mixed together comprise my life and make it unforgettable. I take both and grateful for both. The new coming day is ever more incredible because of this mixture of emotions and I always start it on a positive foot.”

“I am happy to be home. To lead the life of purpose is stimulating. I often in a state of inward merriment and I encourage myself to prolong this feeling because it is contagious. People around me can feel it and, consequently, become happier from my presence in their life.”

L. is very contented in her profession. She is a link in a chain of remarkable alterations for the better. 

In a positive state of mind you can withstand the passing disappointments and pain. You become a strong personality, the only one controlling your inner state of mind. Happy you, develop new skills with joy, that activity leads to success and that all gives you more reasons to be even happier. Serenity and peace are on your way when you remind yourself of your unbroken positivity.

Conclusion

L. confided in me and gave her permission to share her story. She only asked to make an emphasis on the happy side of it, showing to my readers the importance of positive, grateful approach to life. She mentioned several times that love saved her sanity, and optimism of her parents, being contagious, helped her to get better physically and emotionally.

It is hard to overestimate the importance of positivity. The most deplorable and irreparable results come from deeds made in a state of pessimistic rejection of bright and jolly in life. Whatever comes your way, allow it to be, but experience it with inner belief in a good outcome. A positive approach to life helps you to be preserved and unbroken. It reminds you that what seems distressing at one point in time is a blessing at another. 

Stay tuned… 

Personal Growth

I Found 7 Profound Reasons to Be Patient, and It Saved My Family

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Consider hardships as blessings, rejoice at the opportunity to exercise your patience

I found patience at a crisis in my life… the blessing that greeted my nature – Olya Aman

Only three years ago I used to be so mild and gentle, so sweet and good-humored that earth seemed not my element. My cheerful, happy smile was always present for my beloved husband and baby, my firstborn child. Every minute lived in our home seemed delicious.

All vanished gradually like a breeze, leaving a sign of warmth in the frosty air. I decided to work from home on some company projects rather than going to the office every day. I was delighted to spend more time with my growing family, a second child being on his way.

1) Stay strong when marks of quietness and uneventfulness color your life.

Our third son was a piece of happy, unexpected news. I didn’t fully recover mentally from the merry sensation of being with my second baby, only a year at that time. In the beginning, straggling to be everywhere: keeping the kids nice and neat, the house cozy and welcoming, the food tasty and nourishing — I reduced my restful, sleeping hours to about four a day, comforting myself with thoughts about excellence and perfection of my life.

In three months I felt as if I was groping forward a few steps in my daily life and strolling backward with increasing speed. The little one cried almost every night with no obvious reason. I often lost my temper with my four-year-old, expecting him to be always handy and ready to help in any possible way with kids and with things around the house.

The growing family forced my husband to accept an offer of higher pay and longer absence from home, often being away on his business trips for weeks in a row. Left alone with kids I could not find energy enough to keep my old acquaintances and friends. I was busy and very lonely.

Patience — a lifelong spiritual practice. Do not let time rob you of your brightness, but let it add depth to your personality. Get skilled at pulling the ropes and handling the ribbons of your emotional strength, so you can control your life with all its waiting, watching, and knowing time.

2) Fight snappy conduct that is stealing out with noiseless distracting footsteps.

I kept reproaching myself for lack of attention to my husband and kids. I knew that I needed to be careful about how I dealt with those about me. Too often I ended up snappish in my manner.

The atmosphere at home became suffocating. I and my husband took what seemed to us a strict line of duty: him — providing for the wellbeing of our family, and I — devoting myself fully to the kids. And although our generous impulses had the best intentions, the outcome didn’t provide lasting happiness.

Patience — a way to transform frustration. In this blissful state, you grow familiar and confidential with your beloved people. You have a larger and more loving view when determining the right word and action.

3) Withstand frugal life and hardships.

I was aching to the distant time of those happy days when my husband was at home every night, lifting the weight of troubles by his help and loving support. The tears I shed on the occasion of his coming home from another business trip caused the sacred emotional transformation. A feeble stream of our family life needed to be revived anew, and the only solution was to reunite our family, sacrificing some pleasant but unnecessary luxuries on the way.

My husband decided to go back to his old employment with lower pay and higher healthy, meaningful time spent with his family. With each day at home and each family dinner, the healthy and benign atmosphere was coming back to the house, the chores hanged lighter on my hands.

Patience — a re-attuning to intuition. It is a way to be happy when alive and breathing, even though life may seem hard and frustrations pressing. Without patience you feel like the little tottering, stumbling, clutching child that cries bitterly when left without promised candy.

4) Feel radiance from a disappointing fall.

We abandoned our expensive car for a cheaper and a trifle less comfortable one and our pompous yearly vacations for a lovely countryside escape. When a chain of unlucky events at my husband’s work culminated in his losing the position, we didn’t despair. We lived out of our humble savings and occasional company commissions that I still received now and then.

My husband freed up from the necessity to go every day to the office finally could devote his time to his music experiments. He used to compose wonderful pieces when in college. His hobby didn’t excite much approval from his parents, and he abandoned it almost completely during the years of his company work.

Patience — a way to respond to setbacks and failure. It teaches you to turn your thoughts swiftly upon every blessing in your life, so you stop pitying yourself and fight for your place under this sun. You gather waiting, watching, and knowing skills — and reflect the wise acceptance of the inevitable, and respond to disappointment with grace.

5) Attempt to get to a distant glimmer of perfection.

My husband was shutting himself up in his study at night, interrupting his work for rounds with our crying son. The little creature grew quieter with time, sensing my increasing tranquility. I had my full night’s sleep thanks to my husband’s loving help. Our older son got much attached to his father with his bedtime stories and childish fighting games.

Sometimes the artistic progress was dishearteningly slow. Producing music, though, became more familiar with each failing attempt at reaching the desired effect. I believed in his talent and future success. I encouraged his persistent work.

Patience — a high tolerance for delay. You feel perfect timing for implementing your ideas. For people deprived of patience, it is hard to begin any project, the prospects seem vague, tangled, chaotic and the entire process exceedingly disturbing.

6) Delay gratification. It’ll make the achievement sweeter.

The daily treadmill of our home life was sweet and enchanting, notwithstanding the portioned to us hardships. I liked to see my husband, to hear him about the place and at his music work.

One year left us with a feeling that we’ve accomplished a lot of good for our family, which no money could buy. The second year brought the first small yet increasingly delightful music projects. My husband and a few of his college friends got back together and created a small-movie company.

Patience — an ability to delay gratification. Once you find enough of it within yourself you develop a sensuous susceptibility to timing. You recognize the perfect moment for each important step in your life, and if you feel that time is not right — you can wait without frustration.

7) Avoid procrastination and lend yourself to fulfilling your dream.

All three of their movies presented at the festivals didn’t gain recognition. My husband became an instigator and a powerful motivator for his small company lot. They often got together at our family dinner table to discuss future projects and share the inspirational vibe between them.

His music grew strange, turbulent and insistent, soft and plaintive — and the movie they produced with not much money but with great blissful inspiration became a winner.

Patience — a way to greater inward wisdom. Take the wiser part of grasping at every opportunity to use the capacity to tolerate suffering, and with steady tread go to every trial on the way to your dream.

Conclusion

Patience — active, powerful state. Life without patience is an eternity of torture. Patience thrashes reason into you and evokes absolute devotion to the life itself with everything that makes this experience fascinating.

This is a great practice of compassion. With it, you can always find a way to a non-irritable and non-hostile place within yourself.

Never be entreated to leave this peaceful place. All fears, and hopes, and wild emotions subside and do not jostle and chase each other through your mind when you redeem your ability to tolerate and endure.

Stay tuned…

Mental Health

6 Ways to Keep Happy Attitude in a Disabled Body

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To linger here or to feel that you belong… – Olya Aman

Introduction

T. is a lean, long-backed, large-headed Lebanese, with surly tones of his voice and coarse features of his face. We scour the country together every now and then: I – on my feet and he – on his wheels. His wheelchair is a speedy little beast, accelerated by his mighty hands and skillfully maneuvered by his flexible torso.

T. is my dear friend. I can drop a curtsy each time I see him hurrying to greet me in his very wealthy manner. You would never believe looking at his expressive and full of exhilarating energy face, that death had been hovering over him just three years ago.

1) A Rushing Torrent of Grateful Feelings

The dark night in T.’s life crept slowly on, unexpected and unwelcomed. The sun rose and sank, and he was dwindling away beneath the dry and wasting heat of fever, trying to understand the reasons why he was still alive…

A weak, thin, and pallid face was looking at him from the multi-squared mirror lights of the hospital ceiling. Outside the window the mean-looking portico showed strangers in and out, smiling and crying, old folks and newborns – all colors of countenances and personalities were passing through his painful perception for forty-three thousand agonizing wakeful minutes of his confinement to the bed.

When starting to sit down to his meals, still dispirited and sad, the realization that the chains of grief were the heaviest of all fetters came to T.’s mind. He knew that the mournful spirit he was in would only bring the end of his life closer. The belief in a higher intelligent plan and purpose was still holding him tight, not letting him sink into that despair completely.

T. needed to return to the world he belonged. And hour by hour the drop of every happy memory brought back first feeble streams of life. The fairest consolation came in disguise of a prayer. He applied himself with assiduity to the task of reviving his inner and outer strength so his family, always supporting and loving, could be proud of him.

Every generous impulse and feeling of his heart were acknowledged to bring him back from that low and solemn air to the full and blooming life around. He made off as fast as he could to lay his spirits to the ground and managed to get himself out of the bed and on his wheels with surprising speed. Every morning he called before his mind’s eye a vast amphitheater of loving faces of his dear people: his mom and dad, his brothers and sisters, his cousins and dear friends.

Grateful Feelings remind us that dear people and happy moments in the past and present should wrap us in their loving warmth and console the wounded body and soul. Regret and grief bruise the heart, making things in the world dark and gloomy. These feelings may force hate to prevail, so that the person that is suffering would condemn himself to abhor life and think that it pays him by the same coin. One should love life worse than it loves him and live only by that motto.

2) Life and Death in Opposition

The beauty beyond the tomb, when it is accepted in the very heart, can shed a gentle glow upon life and bring a quiet happiness. T. didn’t make a coffin of his heart and sealed it away. He didn’t let his life be buried in the pages of a death book. The gift of life is enormous and the only way to make an effort to pay back for it is to try your utmost to live to the fullest contentment, so that the bliss of your love towards the world around charges it with positive energy.

The contradictory emotions T. felt brought greatest interest and eagerness to his life. Sorrow still was tingling through his veins, but it raised the rattling exaltation at the every notion that perception was able to fill his senses with. He didn’t feel his legs anymore, but that missing part of his body was substituted by strains of overly agitated nerves of his arms and spine. He followed on the track of strengthening his torso every instant he felt the need to hue-and-cry to the missing limbs.

Comparison and Contrast of life and death teach us that life is a poem and it ought to be sung down to the very bottom. Because to cease to love is worse than to die, and death is worse than suffering. We are sorry for the men and women who forced to linger here in constant pain. This feeling of compassion revives willpower of a soul, and chains of indifference, for say what you will, are the exact heaviness as chains of hovering death.

3) Elbowing Hard upon Goals

T.’s life hanged heavy on his hands even before the turning point that left him without legs. He used to ruminate long and hard trying to decide what direction to set his life forth. Being 32-years-old, he had been poring over various subjects and not over anything with enough time. He rambled at his pleasure too long, mostly spending time in the gym listening to his favorite music. It seemed a matter of impossibility to center his life around fitness and body healing strategies now when he lost almost half of it, but this idea was firmly impressed upon his mind. T. became transfixed with the desire to achieve the heights he didn’t even think possible for his fully-functional healthy past-self.

So vigorous a pursuit of a dream that T. started would make anyone wonder at the beaming of energy that he possessed. He was not ignorant of his own mind any longer: his heart was set firmly on a goal to become a physical therapist working in amputee rehabilitation. He was not mistaking the impulses of his soul – he became a world known inventor of dynamic specific strengthening exercises that flex and tone the muscles. His online teaching courses are empowering. His own experience gives him psychological advantage to motivate people who suffered a loss to set goals and move on with their lives.

4) Issuing Forth with a Mentor Beside

The impressive stateliness that radiated from T. was adopted from his mentor. The multifarious influence this person had on T.’s life helped him to not only look on nature and his fellow-men with positive reflection but gave him a clear vision of himself.

The simplicity of his mentor’s life stirred T. profoundly. This person was happy, chasing his dreams and loving his family. With neither legs no arms he was shining with heart strength and will-power. Every trace of T.’s essence strove to be worthy of the second chance he was given and to live his life limitlessly. He had that example of extraordinary idyll and threw himself headlong into the task of bringing purpose and happiness into his life.

A Person Beside that shows an example of indefatigable hope makes us forget about the despair and misery. Hope is the light that dwells in all hearts. We need to be reminded as often as it is possible about possibilities and discoveries. Life is not stationary, it drives us to new interesting days and when we see how other people manage to live those happily despite any limitations we strive to do the same.

5) Power of Giving Others a Heart to Live

T. still had a realizing sense of his weakness and captivity. But he was recovering his life-balance by an effort of willpower and desire to set an example for others. There was a dash of the divine in it – to be smashed from monotonous and tiresome life in a healthy body by a fall of a tree on a thunderous day, and to be revived to the beautiful and happy life in a wheelchair.

T. decided to never be lost amid a host of distressing feelings and regrets. He wished that something partaking of the unheard-of dream-like life would happen to him. The desire to become a role model for others gave him that spiritual illumination that shifted his life and he was ready happily to face his past, present, and future.

6) Let Only Love to Hold Your Body Prisoner

T. didn’t think that he was more than other people. He was a man like every other man and that by itself attributed exceptional importance to the task he set for himself. He conveyed a message that whatever happened to him was not a run of ill-luck but a fortunate wakeful blessing. He shared many talks on how to accept the past and devotedly love your-past-self and present-self.

He received many compassionate comments on his media channels. The influence which his sincere contented personality exercised was deep and lasting. People saw a humble person just like themselves, never repenting on his helplessness, but actually claiming to be powerful enough to uplift his own spirit and inspire others to do the same.

Love-Centered Life is a masterpiece. The creative force is in everyone and everything living on this earth. Our hopes and wishes when driven by love transform the world around us into an art gallery where you and only you make a choice what to hang on the wall of your life. Make the exposition marry and colorful. Conquer death by the force of loving ecstasy.

Conclusion

Often, we find ourselves at a crisis in our lives. The loss takes many forms: ruined health, missing limb, beloved person that was forsaken… The union of fate and belief can give us the most poignant bliss. And the passion to live life to the fullest is only gaining in strength fueled by grateful feelings, love to the life itself, and love towards yourself. The birth of day is growing brighter, more from accomplished goals than from the sun rising. The purest and most amiable generosity of other people, their truest, warmest, soul-felt teaching of flourishing despite any limitations serve as the greatest power that alleviates the sinking of soul and spirit.

Stay tuned…